Angus Maddison's Mission to Understand the World and its History through Numbers

Angus Maddison's contribution to the analysis of long-run developments in the world economy has been monumental. His continuous cumulative work on an ever expanding data-set of national accounts and his in-depth analysis of changes in the main trends in the world’s economic history has given us fundamental tools for a better understanding of past secular trends and future scenarios. His tentative estimates of total and per capita income in remote times must be considered important preliminary building stones in the process of cumulative learning. His main contributions to our knowledge of world economic changes, briefly surveyed in this paper, will be treasured by generations of scholars of comparative growth and development and of economic historians.Angus Maddison's contribution, comparative economic growth and development, quantitative economic history

Structural Change and Economic Development in China and India

The comparison of the periods of rapid economic growth in China since 1978 and India since 1992 markedly show different patterns of development and structural change. However, both countries experienced some advantages of "relative economic backwardness" and some aspects of the "fordist model of growth". China had an anticipated and deeper structural change, spurred mainly by economic reforms and the growth of the internal market in the 1980s, and, since the mid-1990s, by a very rapid penetration of its industrial products in the world market. However, a substantial part of China's exports in medium and high tech sectors are due to joint-ventures with foreign multinationals. India had a more balanced structural change and a slower insertion in the world market, although some sectors, such as software, steel, automotive and pharmaceuticals are recently increasing their share in the world markets. Owing to the huge number of micro-enterprises and the great size of the informal sector, India benefited much less than China from the economies of scale and from the third wave of the "fordist model of growth". Both countries, but in particular China, experienced negative externalities of this recent phase of rapid growth, such as higher inequalities, pollution and urban congestion.economic development, structural change, fordist model of growth, China's economy, India's economy

China's economy, India's economy, comparative development

Editors' Introduction to the symposium "Comparing China and India: Structural Change and Development"China's economy, India's economy, comparative development

Publishing an E-journal on a shoe string: Is it a sustainaible project?.

The aim of this article is to report on an experiment in publishing an open access journal and learn from it about the larger field of open access publishing. The experiment is the launch of the European Journal of Comparative Economics (EJCE), an on-line refereed and open access journal, founded in 2004 by the European Association for Comparative Economic Studies and LIUC University in Italy. They embarked upon this project in part to respond to the rising concentration in the market for scientific publishing and the resulting use of market power to raise subscription prices and restrict access to scientific output. We had hoped that open access journals could provide some countervailing power and increase competition in the field. Our experience running a poorly endowed journal has shown that entry to the field may be easy, yet that making it a sustainable enterprise is not straightforward.Open-access publishing, online journals, scientific publication

ASCESA E DECLINO DELL'ECONOMIA AMERICANA

The paper illustrates the rapid economic ascent of the United States from 1870 to 1913 and the consolidation of the American economic leadership in the years 1914-50 despite "the lost decade" succeeded to the 1929 Wall Street crash. The advantages associated to the "frontier" in the first period, and to the great size of the American economy and the "Fordist Model of development" in the years 1908-1929 and 1934-1969, strongly contribute to explain the great success of the American economy. At the beginning of the XX° century the United States is already the major world economy and becomes also the major military, political and financial power in the following decades. At the beginning of the 1950s the leadership of the American economy is undisputed, but militarily and politically the Soviet Union represents a great adversary though having an economic size which is less than half the one of the United States. From the 1950s up to 1989 there are a harsh confrontation between the two super-powers and also the great, though partial, catching -up of Japan and of several Western European economies. Moreover, in 1978 China's economy begins its phase of very rapid growth and a great catching -up process, and in the latest few years it exceeds the American economy as regards total GDP in purchasing power parities and the value of exports. The US thus begins a period of relative economic decline. The United States remains the richest major economic power in terms of per capita GDP, but China is rapidly diminishing the gap and it might exceed the American giant in the future. Yet, China has deep structural weaknesses, though partially different from those of the United States

Functionalized carbon nanostructures versus drug resistance: Promising scenarios in cancer treatment

Carbon nanostructures (CN) are emerging valuable materials for the assembly of highly engineered multifunctional nanovehicles for cancer therapy, in particular for counteracting the insurgence of multi-drug resistance (MDR). In this regard, carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene oxide (GO), and fullerenes (F) have been proposed as promising materials due to their superior physical, chemical, and biological features. The possibility to easily modify their surface, conferring tailored properties, allows different CN derivatives to be synthesized. Although many studies have explored this topic, a comprehensive review evaluating the beneficial use of functionalized CNT vs G or F is still missing. Within this paper, the most relevant examples of CN-based nanosystems proposed for MDR reversal are reviewed, taking into consideration the functionalization routes, as well as the biological mechanisms involved and the possible toxicity concerns. The main aim is to understand which functional CN represents the most promising strategy to be further investigated for overcoming MDR in cancer

Combining carbon nanotubes and chitosan for the vectorization of methotrexate to lung cancer cells

A hybrid system composed of multi-walled carbon nanotubes coated with chitosan was proposed as a pH-responsive carrier for the vectorization of methotrexate to lung cancer. The effective coating of the carbon nanostructure by chitosan, quantified (20% by weight) by thermogravimetric analysis, was assessed by combined scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (N1s signal), respectively. Furthermore, Raman spectroscopy was used to characterize the interaction between polysaccharide and carbon counterparts. Methotrexate was physically loaded onto the nanohybrid and the release profiles showed a pH-responsive behavior with higher and faster release in acidic (pH 5.0) vs. neutral (pH 7.4) environments. Empty nanoparticles were found to be highly biocompatible in either healthy (MRC-5) or cancerous (H1299) cells, with the nanocarrier being effective in reducing the drug toxicity on MRC-5 while enhancing the anticancer activity on H1299